The Thunder Bay District Health Unit is waiting for rollout details from the province. THUNDER BAY — Area residents will have to wait before learning when they’ll be able to receive an updated vaccine targeting recent variants of COVID-19.
Health Canada announced Tuesday that it has approved the use of Moderna’s Spikevax XBB.1.5 vaccine for individuals six months of age and older.
“The vaccine was authorized after an independent and thorough scientific review for safety, efficacy and quality, and this included a review of data from several studies of the primary series of booster doses of the Spikevax vaccine collected over the past two years,” said Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser to Health Canada.
In a briefing, Sharma told reporters “After assessing all the data we have concluded there is strong evidence showing that the benefits of this vaccine outweigh the potential risks.”
The vaccine will be available to provinces and territories to coordinate their fall vaccination campaigns.
But the Thunder Bay District Health Unit currently has no information on when the rollout will begin.
“We will provide an update on when and where the public can access this new vaccine as soon as we receive provincial guidance. Thank you for your patience and we look forward to sharing the news with you soon,” the health unit posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer for Canada, said clinical data has shown the XBB.1.5 vaccine prompts an immune response against various Omicron sublineages, including EG.5 and BA2.86.
Health Canada continues to evaluate applications by Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax for approval of their updated vaccines.
Across the country, over the last few weeks COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations have been increasing.
source tbnewswatch